The Syria Disaster, Seven Years In

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The Atlantic

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🗓️ 20 April 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

Long the crossroads of civilizations, Syria has now spent seven years as the proxy warzone of great powers. With over half a million dead and millions more displaced, the conflict is now “arguably the world’s largest humanitarian disaster since World War II,” writes Andrew Tabler in The Atlantic. “The Syrian Civil War now threatens to morph into the Syria War—a regional conflagration which seems likely to burn for a generation. And civilians are cursed to live it, and die in it, every day.” How did we get here? And what comes next? Links - “How Syria Came to This” (Andrew Tabler, April 15, 2018) - “What If There Is No Ethical Way to Act in Syria Now?” (Sigal Samuel, April 13, 2018) - “The Obama Doctrine” (Jeffrey Goldberg, April 2016 Issue) - “The Syrian War Is Actually Many Wars” (Krishnadev Calamur, April 13, 2018) - “Trump's Selective Empathy for Syrian War Victims” (Krishnadev Calamur, April 18, 2018) - The Poems of Max Ehrmann (Max Ehrmann, 1906) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	No one really knows exactly how many civilians have died in the seven-year war in Syria.
0:09.0	The United States of America will not allow the Assad regime to continue to use chemical weapons.
0:17.0	My fellow Americans, a short time ago, I ordered the United States Armed Forces to launch precision strikes on
0:28.7	targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of Syrian dictator Bishar al-Assad.
0:37.0	After seven years of cruelty and catastrophe in Syria, the UN has stopped trying to
0:46.2	count the dead. 13 million Syrians need humanitarian assistance. The tendrils of
0:51.2	the disaster have spread across the world.
0:54.0	How did it come to this?
0:56.8	And what can be salvaged?
0:59.0	This is Radio Atlantic. Hi, I'm Matt Thompson, executive editor of The Atlantic.
1:17.0	With me here in DC is our international editor Kathy Gilson and Kathy welcome.
1:22.0	Thanks, hi Matt. Hi. National Editor Kathy Gilson and Kathy welcome.
1:22.6	Thanks, hi Matt.
1:23.8	Hi.
1:24.8	And also joining us, although not in the room, is Andrew Tabler,
1:28.5	a scholar at the Washington Institute and, in a former life,
1:32.0	the co-founder of Syria today. Andrew, so glad that you could join us. Welcome.
1:36.0	Pleasure to be with you. We're here today to talk about the situation in Syria and And Kathy, I want you to, if you would, catch us up on the news. What has happened in Syria in recent days?
1:50.0	So in recent days, last more specifically the United States once again
1:56.3	launched an attack on regime assets within Syria. These were specifically three sites associated with the Syrian
2:04.7	regime's Chemical Weapons Program. This is only the second time the US has struck
2:09.2	at the regime directly in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack the last time was last
	...

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